


Love is a Distant Aroma at Best

by outrightmight



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Spoilers, Spoilers for the opening chapters of Dishonored
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 03:08:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2253573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outrightmight/pseuds/outrightmight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Outsider is always bored, except when he’s not. He is also quite easily amused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love is a Distant Aroma at Best

**Author's Note:**

> Heavy warnings for gore and graphic depictions of violence. I'm not kidding here. The Dishonored universe is quite brutal, and I do love it so.

Things never formed in the Void, they simply  _were._  To the Outsider, it was a source of constant amusement, to see what the Void chose to vomit up, observe the little things that passed through its hunger and made room in the Void’s heart.

Oh, but he’d been so  _bored_  lately. 

A plague,  _again._  He’d seen thousands of plagues before, watched them decimate shorelines, eat cities and spit corpses out. Plagues needed multitudes to breed. So he would watch them populate, and then sit back to wait. But it always, always brought him amusement. 

He’d even sat, once, in a dim dark room in the Flooded Districts to watch the death that came with this current rat-borne infestation. The girl was noble, or somewhat. Some cast-off stray of an Overseer, born and bred in the Golden Cat. 

He particularly enjoyed the final stages of the disease, the bloody eyes, the gradual loss of speech, the neural disintegration. He liked patterns the blood left on their faces. They always made an effort to stop it, claw it out when they went out of their minds. Beyond hurting. He also quite enjoyed how people treated those who were sick -- the small dramas that played out when they realized that they were doomed.  


Delicious. 

"Now, now." He told the poor girl as she stumbled around in the dark, moaning and weeping. She couldn’t hear him, of course. "It won’t hurt for long." It would, of course. Strong wills took forever to die. Girls like her were born to fight. 

Ah, but this source of small amusement. It seemed he had nothing else these days. Not even his pet assassin could break the monotony. 

He observed the district for a while. It had been years since the barriers broke and the sea rushed in, and yet people chose to live here. He could hear the clatter of the train in the distance. He wondered if the Empress knew that the Spymaster was already dumping bodies into the abandoned streets. 

The Outsider was startled out of his reverie by a rumble in the Void, a waking through like a large creature sensing prey. He felt the Void sit up and hum in delight. When it did that, the Outsider knew to watch. 

It hadn’t been this awake since they started slaughtering the whales. Oh, that had been such  _fun._

The gazebo was particularly beautiful at this time of day, and he loved the figure she cut in her velvet garb. He felt her heart leap at the site of Corvo — and lesser hearts had fallen for lesser men, the Outsider was certain. 

The _assassin_  certainly was a surprise. He almost clapped his hands in delight as they swept in and the battle that followed. Three to one and still he bests them. If he could crow, or still laugh, he would.

He felt his palms meet, a halfhearted touch, when they took the child. 

The Void roared as the Empress fell.

Empress Jessamine’s death would never have been a small thing, this fierce creature with her pale eyes and dark hair. It wasn’t like that girl in the room, bleeding out when she could have been the finest mind in the Empire. This was a wave that could crush the world. 

And oh, the  _grief running through this man_ _._ If she was the wave, he would be the quake thrumming underneath the ocean floor. His anger was like a leviathan stirring. He’d fought so hard to keep her safe. He’d fought so hard to be by her side. And Emily…

 _Oh, Corvo._  The Outsider suppressed the wild ribbon of delight that corded through him.  _You are to be the fire of this age. Will you let them burn? Will you forge true?_

"How delightful." The Outsider said aloud, as he watched the guards approach, as the Spymaster accused Corvo of murder. He watched as they put him in chains and led him away. He said not a word. The Outsider watched his retreating back, the rigid line of his spine.

Corvo said not a word, and the Outsider felt his lips curve into a smile as he listened to Corvo’s seething heart.

He wasn’t bored anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, you can find me on [Tumblr.](http://outrightmight.tumblr.com)


End file.
